Emotional farewell for Roy: partner, son, friend
His name was Shreyas Roy, and he is remembered as someone who touched the lives of everyone he met.
“He just loved life, loved people, and loved to be helpful,” said Tim Heeley-Ray, Roy’s former classmate at McGill University Faculty of Medicine.
Roy was a doctor, a partner, a son and a friend. He died early Sunday morning on Mount Royal after falling from a cliff during a hike with his partner, Véronique.
Roy’s colleagues, friends and family gathered at Alfred Dallaire Memoria on Jean-Talon St. E. on Tuesday evening to remember their loved one.
“He took a long path to get to where he wanted to get in life, and he just got there. He just crossed the finish line,” Heeley-Ray said with emotion outside the memorial.
Roy’s family said in his obituary that he was soon to start a position as an attending surgeon in pediatric hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplants at Ste-Justine Hospital.
“He was about to start a really wonderful career and help a lot of kids.”
The parking lot outside the memorial service was full, and people trickled in and out throughout the gathering, which began at 5 p.m.
Roy’s parents and partner were present at the service, according to his former classmate at the Université de Montréal, Marianne Konamna. She said the event was rich with emotion.
“You see my reaction, and I wasn’t in his close circles,” she said in tears. “I can’t even imagine (how) his partner, and my bosses who worked with him (feel).”
Roy, 38, was born in New York City, grew up in Patna, India, and studied in Syracuse, according to his obituary. He recently became a fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada after completing a fellowship through the Université de Montréal.
From the first time he met them, Roy would touch people’s lives, Konamna added.
The two studied for the Royal College exam together.
Working with Roy was “a blast,” Heeley-Ray said, adding that he was always the smartest and most fun person in the class. Both graduated from McGill in 2006.
Heeley-Ray said Roy represented the class of ’06 at many events — he was the valedictorian, and gave a talk to thank the families of those who donated cadavers to the class.
“In surgery you work so much, you become ... stressed, and you forget that it’s possible to hurt people. But him, he was never like that,” Konamna said.
She added that he was a great example to follow, and it’s sad his life ended so quickly.
The Montreal fire department, which extracted Roy from the ravine where he had fallen Sunday, said he fell from the flank of Mount Royal overlooking the Cartier monument on Park Ave.
That flank is topped by a cliff where the drop is easily 30 metres and, at some points, seems almost sheer.
While much of the two-metre wide dirt trail that follows the cliff has a link fence keeping walkers away from the cliff edge, on Tuesday there were several gaps in that fence.
Some occurred naturally and were no more than a metre wide; at least one other appeared to have been man-made.
A three-metre section of fence seems to have been deliberately pushed down alongside a small sign warning passersby of the danger of landslides and falls.
In lieu of flowers, Roy’s family is asking that donations be made in his name to La Fondation de L’Hôpital Sainte-Justine.
Heeley-Ray said it was in Roy’s nature to be altruistic.
“He was ... going to give back to so many people, and he was going to do it in a humble and altruistic way without any hunger for greed or fame.”